A conventional cotton harvester includes an assembly of row units mounted across a front end of and movable with the harvester. As the harvester is driven across the field, the row units pick or strip cotton from the plant rows in the field. The cotton harvested by the row units is drawn into duct structure leading from the row units by a fan assembly. After the cotton is drawn into the duct structure, the fan assembly effectively forces harvested cotton upwardly and into a basket or bin.
In more modern cotton harvesters, the cotton basket or bin is mounted on a frame of the harvester for elevational movement between a lower cotton receiving or harvesting position and an upper cotton discharge position. When cotton is to be discharged from the basket, a truck or wagon is pulled adjacent to the basket on the harvester and the basket is raised or elevated to the discharging position to allow cotton to be effectively removed or dumped from the basket into the track or wagon.
A basket on a cotton harvester typically includes a walled structure having a hinged door on one side thereof through which the cotton is discharged from the basket. A conveyor assembly extends across a floor or bottom of the basket and preferably extends across at least a portion of the door. After the door of the basket is opened, operation of the conveyor assembly effectively conveys cotton frown the basket across the door from where the cotton is dumped into the truck or wagon.
A plurality of manually actuated switches are located in a cab region of the harvester for effecting the unloading of the cotton from the basket. The manually operated switches are normally operated in sequential order by the operator and include a basket lift switch, a door open switch, and a conveyor switch. To normally unload the cotton into the truck, the operator must initially move the basket from its harvesting position into an elevated position by actuating the basket lift switch that activates a lift motor assembly causing the basket to move elevationally from a lowered or harvesting position to a raised position.
After the basket is in its elevated position, the door of the basket must be swung open so that the cotton can be unloaded from the basket and into the truck. To effect such ends, the door open switch is manually actuated by the operator. As will be appreciated, the door open switch activates a door motor assembly that causes the door to move between its open and closed position.
Once the door is open, the conveyor assembly is operated to remove cotton from the basket and into the truck. Operation of the conveyer assembly is controlled by the manually actuated conveyor switch. The conveyor switch enables a conveyor motor assembly to operate the conveyor assembly thereby unloading the cotton from the harvester. Once the cotton is unloaded into from the basket and moved the truck the conveyor assembly is stopped, the door is closed, and the basket is returned to its harvesting position.
There are abnormal conditions which are occasionally encountered during the harvesting process when the harvested cotton needs to be expediently unloaded from the harvester. In such circumstances, the operator wants to quickly discharge the cotton stored in the basket of the harvester and shut off the fan assembly without having to sequentially engage a series of switches. In such circumstances, the operator also wants to expeditiously discharge the cotton stored in the basket as through operation of a single switch which would then allow the operator to vacate the cab station of the harvester. The cotton harvester control systems currently available, however, are not equipped to expeditiously discharge cotton from a basket of the cotton harvester.
Thus, there is a need and a desire for a cotton harvester control system that will allow cotton stored within the basket to be automatically and expeditiously unloaded therefrom with minimal operator participation being required to effect the expeditious discharge of stored cotton from the harvester.